To provide economical, reliable and safe access to space, design weaknesses should be identified earlier in the engineering life cycle, using model-based systems engineering. The slow manual approach to performing Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a barrier to early identification of weaknesses. To semi-automate the identification of failure modes and causes use a prototype FMEA Assistant, including a library with standard terminology, to classify components associated with failure modes and automatically identify candidate functions, infrastructure and failure modes. This automation will reduce cost and increase coverage, standardization and reuse. Early identification of design weaknesses can substantially reduce rework costs later in the life cycle, which are all too common in the testing phase. Use of SysML will closely link safety analysis with the overall engineering process, resulting in smoother collaboration and safer vehicles and missions. The resulting reusable model would become part of the model-based system engineering process.